The Predatory Pet/Servant System: A ridiculous average of around $75,000USD paywall for Best In Slot

As we all know. Servants have an active ability of providing X amount of power for Y duration. You can increase X and Y value by sacrificing a servant to another. You gain a certain amount of fellowship (varying from 1 to 6). You start at 1 fellowship and the maximum amount of fellowship is 50 and that provides 40 power. Doesn't seem that bad right? Wrong. You are limited to 9 tries on a servant to obtain as much fellowship as you can. On top of that, it is not linear progression, 40 fellowship does not give you 36 power, it gives you 20 (depending on rarity of the servant). The last 5 fellowships are the one that gives the most amount of power per fellowship (3 power for 1 fellowship compared to 3 fellowships for 1 power) and those last fellowships are statistically insane to reach thus you need so many tries for a really good servant. This makes it the worst and most pay to win aspect of the game and can be considered one of the most pay to win aspect of any game.

Why is it terrible and a pay to win system? (Bare in mind that TERA was never truly P2W (where you'd have to spend real money for in game stats) until now.

First of all, the only viable source to obtain pet is via an item only obtainable with EMP (you need to spend money for EMP). The only other way is Legacy Essence but you need 20 of those for a servant (minus the quest to which the servant is not tradeable). Probably just a handful of people have gotten that many Legacy Essences so far. Basically, Legacy Essence is not even remotely close to be a somewhat "viable" way of obtain pets to then convert into servants.

Secondly, you need an average of 5.¯4 (or 5.444...) fellowships per promotion (sacrifice) in 9 promotions. The probability of getting an average of 5.¯4 fellowships in 9 promotions in a row is 1 in 177,244 (if each variation of fellowship gained after a promotion has the same probability but if it is not (5 and 6 is rarer), it is worse). You'd need, in average, 177,244 servants for 1 servant with 50 fellowships. However, it is actually less than that because of the principle that once you do not reach the amount of fellowship possible to be gained to reach 50 fellowships with the remaining promotions (for example, if you need 20 fellowships but you only have 3 tries left, you cannot obtain 20 fellowships because the maximum amount possible is 18 fellowships (6x3)), you can stop promoting that pet and use that pet to promote a brand new one. The average amount of servants needed with that method (that method is used here) drops down to around to anywhere between 10,000 to 14,000 pets needed (you can also see that the average in around those numbers according to the link posted above). I will take the middle and say 12,000.
Simply put, you need in average 12,000 servants for 1 servant with 50 fellowships.

Now that we know the average amount of servants needed to obtain a 50 fellowship is 1/12,000, let's calculate the cost.
You have a (rough but accurate estimation) 40% chance of getting a pet (1 servant is considered as 2 pets and the moongourd fragment is considered as 0.1 pet) from the companion loot box (150 EMP). Therefore, 1 pet is worth 375 EMP thus 1 servant is worth 750 EMP.
12,000 x 750 EMP = 9,000,000 EMP. 9,000,000 needed in average for a servant with 50 fellowships. With the best EMP to USD ratio, you can get 12,000 EMP for $100 USD. (9,000,000/12,000)x100 = $75,000 USD in average needed for 1 servant with 50 fellowships.

I repeat, $75,000 USD for a servant with 50 fellowships. $75,000 USD

This is absurd. No one in their right mind would think that spending $75,000 USD for a pet is ok. It is straight up evil and morally and/or just plain wrong.
"Then if it is absurd, why bother going for it or why is it an issue?? hurr durr" Let me just stop you right there. One of the biggest aspect/reason/objective in an MMO is to have (and/or working for) the best gear possible, the best everything, to progress, (that is why it takes time to gear up and all because they want you to keep playing the game), try to do as much DPS as possible to get a high rank in the leaderboards ,you set yourself a goal and progress in it and be feel gratified once you obtain it and the work you have done would feel worth it. It is literally the reason why people keep playing the game, new patch for new content to get rewarded with better/best gear to keep progressing and then they can compete with others because it is fun and challenging. Now, to reach that point, you need to spend $75,000 USD... In a video game...
If someone happens to be extremely lucky or someone that is incredibly rich in real life and gets a 50 fellowship pet, how is that even remotely fair for anyone? They have a straight up insane advantage over others simply because they are WAY richer in real life or extremely lucky.
This game or any MMO with dungeons, leaderboards, etc. have this in common and when you make progression strictly behind a paywall, you stop being good/decent. It is now not even optional to spend money on the game for faster progression (or boost) to have the best gear, stats, etc. It is mandatory.

What can be done?
The immediate solution would be to drastically increase the amount of pets/servants obtained from the companion loot boxes and/or reduce the EMP cost of those boxes. For reference, in EU, it costs 3 times less to get servants. In 50 of their boxes that provide pets and servants, you get approximately 20 servants. It is still terrible but at least not as insanely predatory, it would be still be very very predatory.
Also, drastically increasing the amount of legacy obtained and 1 legacy essence provide 1 pet.
It should not interfer in BHS/EME money stream because people will still non stop (and ridiculously so) spend on pets/servants until reaching that perfect 50 fellowships servant to which it will still, in average costs $5,000-10,000 USD.

I am a immature, dumb, 16 year old kid. I have been playing Tera for a while and always consistently played because of friends and thrill of the fun. Around two to three months ago, the new dungeon patch and pet system was released to NA. As anyone else who followed the patch, we all knew it was some BS P2W content used to have a steep rng system in order to have money, and many compared it to the BDO pet enchanting system that has been generating their developers a ton of money over a few years. Yet this pet system we got is much worse in terms of the unfair benefits it can potentially be and the AMOUNT OF SPENDING REQUIRED TO KEEP TRYING TO GET A BETTER PET.

Now I am a naive kid who just want to play video games. I have been working a little side job for a few years and always used the money I make to fund some new game I enjoy once in a while or buy a skin or two whenever there is a good sale, pretty typical in my opinion. Now the pet we got had a major advantage where you could have up to +40 power buff whenever you toggle the pet and even more importantly, there was an exploit where as long as you resummon the pet, you could have the BUFF THE ENTIRE TIME OF AN INSTANCE, which of course many people abused. Tera is a funny game where there is a wide variety of players with different financial strengths. One PvE static I ran dungeons with spent a lot of money for the pet, as it gave us a heavy advantage in clearing speed and for another month, I was constantly pressured to do the same both from them and from myself to do better. Slowly I spent money every week for a chance to roll on a better pet. I spent 100s a week, thousands eventually. Before I knew it (and this is my fault ofc) I had used all the money I saved up for a while meant for buying other titles in summer and my pretty small college fund. I was filled with regrets and self frustration towards myself for a long time and it ruined my mental state as a student. Frankly, because of my greed but also the predatory system Tera KNEW was addicting and demanding, it made me feel very upset, depressed and just angry for a very long time. I hope this system either be improved, more accessible to players without swiping tons of money, or just reviewed on a hiatus cause it is just designed to be unfair yet pushes people to WANT to keep trying because it gives you a hefty advantage. Severely.

Cmon guys we all know why they put this system in so suddenly. Profit and draining money from players in the game.

-I am a lost boy from Neverland
Usually hanging out with Peter Pan
And when we're bored we play in the woods
Always on the run from Captain Hook

i think they should change it to making it give a specific set amt of fellowship per grade tier, so that you would need more pets to get higher stats if you use low tier fod etc making it not as cancer as it is. personally i dont use pets when i saw and heard about the system in ktera i knew right away this was not for me and it should not be for anyone. i felt they should have done the same thing they did with talismans and release on a test server prior gauge feedback and make adjustments/scrap system before implementing it on live servers. i for one would vote for removal/reverting to the old system but then there are the people who spent trying to get good fellowship etcwhich complicates things.

It is nothing short of a predatory system, created with the intent of exploiting the playerbase for what they are worth. The amount of times I've seen people looking at a mere +1 fellowship on a partner upgrade is tragic. It seems like every change to the game lately has been made with the intent of making money rather than introducing new things. Essence drop rate should be drastically raised, or essence exchange rate should be drastically reduced. Maybe a middle-ground mix of the two. I also agree that our cash shop option should also give much more than it does currently. It's practically a slap in the face to those willing to buy emp as it is. In all sincerity I have almost no faith that BHS will do right by us with their announced change, but we'll just have to see. All I can do is feel bad for those who've already heavily invested into this system.

Well since people are clearly spending thousands on this crap, no amount of complaining on forums is going to change their minds nothing talks louder than money lol

I would think it is only a handful of people who paid thousands. I wouldn't doubt that if it is within reach to get 40 power for the pets, people would spend more in average but eitherway, for a grade 10 pet, you need like 742k gold which is like, $60-70 USD lol.

Loot boxes in itself, are already predatory enough, doesn't matter the age of the one who buys it.

Anything locked inside the current loot boxes, no posted odds, no fail cap, is bound to be predatory, even something like cosmetics.

I hardly doubt ANYONE will want to spend 75k on just a pet. Anything above 30 Fellowship is more than enough imo. Is not like you NEED TO get the pet to be able to clear content, is entirely optional to get a servant.

I think of it as a comodity, having all the abilities of pets, into a single servant, that can boost a little my damage and sometimes shield me, heal me, or restore my mana (lets face it, the other options are kind of garbage for what is gonna be your main servant)

I do agree strongly, that the drop rate of the Legacy Essence has to increase dramatically, but for that to happen, EME needs to get in touch with BHS, or Krafton, whatever you wanna call em, and from experience, you should know already that they arent gonna do something like that.

Should they increase the drop rate to make it more common, it will hurt their sales. So no matter how much we ask em, they will do either nothing, or try to circumvent the issue instead of tackling it directly. Plus they will take their sweet time, they too busy working on A:IR to even give a damn about TERA anymore.

Loot boxes in itself, are already predatory enough, doesn't matter the age of the one who buys it.

There is a difference between cosmetics which does not impact the gameplay and the core aspect of the game vs. straight up stats. Customization that not necessarily everyone wants compared to something everyone need/want.

I hardly doubt ANYONE will want to spend 75k on just a pet. Anything above 30 Fellowship is more than enough imo. Is not like you NEED TO get the pet to be able to clear content, is entirely optional to get a servant.

It appears that you did not read a good portion of my post. It is not about clearing content. It is about, for a good portion of the player base, progression, to obtain what is next. If you think that "clear content" is all there is to it? You'd be done with the game within a week and a vast majority of people is well beyond that on top of the fact that literally everything can be cleared with Stormcry +0... (what the hell is that argument, jesus...)Why do you think BHS implemented the possibility of a servant that gives 40 power?? Because it is as obvious as the sky is blue that they just want to milk the sh*t out of it because of good portion of the players want to progress and you gotta swipe to do so... It is also the principle that you have to spend $75k for something and if someone is extremely lucky, well that person will forever have an edge above you because he simply got lucky but I guess you could try to match him... if you spend 75k ofc.

Here is what I said about it, make sure to read it, twice if necessary:
One of the biggest aspect/reason/objective in an MMO is to have (and/or working for) the best gear possible, the best everything, to progress, (that is why it takes time to gear up and all because they want you to keep playing the game), try to do as much DPS as possible to get a high rank in the leaderboards ,you set yourself a goal and progress in it and be feel gratified once you obtain it and the work you have done would feel worth it. It is literally the reason why people keep playing the game, new patch for new content to get rewarded with better/best gear to keep progressing and then they can compete with others because it is fun and challenging. Now, to reach that point, you need to spend $75,000 USD... In a video game...

I dont need to read the entire post to know that you are literally, putting on the same level, spending money = progress.

I have seen true P2W, i have played my fair share of those kind of games. I would be a fool if i do not recognize this new servant system as a somewhat p2w, because as of right now, the best way to obtain pets and servants, is through the Companion Loot Box.

If we NEEDED servants at 50 fellowship to "progress", clear content, then it would be a P2W mechanic in full fledge. However, you can still access every single part of the content without a servant.
Sure, i will admit that there will be a group of players that will want you to have a servant with that amount of fellowship due to the increased damage, and this, that, my theory craft, "Because if you deal X amount of damage multiplied by the decimal amount of the hypotenuse of Y,Z and fellowship number...." yada yada yada, all that theory crafting thing, you get the point.
This groups will for sure, clear content much faster than the rest due to their overpowered servants. But does it stop you from clearing the same content? Are you obliged to spend that amount of money to clear content? to "progress"?
No

Ask yourself question before claiming that you NEED a high fellowship pet to "progress" : Can i clear content without it?

Sure, the servant system is flawed, and it eventually makes you see the "need" to spend money to get pets to evolve into servants, due to the fact that the main item in game to obtain pets, is heavily locked behind an extremely low drop rate, and you still need to fight against other players for it if it happens to drop from a dungeon boss or BAM.

But that doesnt mean the servant is needed to "progress"

Pretty much your entire post is about how you are seeing the NEED to have a servant to CLEAR CONTENT, PROGRESS.

We get it, is a predatory system, its flawed, and your math is very much welcomed to warn others about the insane cost that would be needed in order to get a 50 fellowship servant, but in the end, you DO NOT NEED a 50 fellowship servant to clear content, is optional, like it is spending money in the game.

I dont need to read the entire post to know that you are literally, putting on the same level, spending money = progress.

I have seen true P2W, i have played my fair share of those kind of games. I would be a fool if i do not recognize this new servant system as a somewhat p2w, because as of right now, the best way to obtain pets and servants, is through the Companion Loot Box.

If we NEEDED servants at 50 fellowship to "progress", clear content, then it would be a P2W mechanic in full fledge. However, you can still access every single part of the content without a servant.
Sure, i will admit that there will be a group of players that will want you to have a servant with that amount of fellowship due to the increased damage, and this, that, my theory craft, "Because if you deal X amount of damage multiplied by the decimal amount of the hypotenuse of Y,Z and fellowship number...." yada yada yada, all that theory crafting thing, you get the point.
This groups will for sure, clear content much faster than the rest due to their overpowered servants. But does it stop you from clearing the same content? Are you obliged to spend that amount of money to clear content? to "progress"?
No

Ask yourself question before claiming that you NEED a high fellowship pet to "progress" : Can i clear content without it?

Sure, the servant system is flawed, and it eventually makes you see the "need" to spend money to get pets to evolve into servants, due to the fact that the main item in game to obtain pets, is heavily locked behind an extremely low drop rate, and you still need to fight against other players for it if it happens to drop from a dungeon boss or BAM.

But that doesnt mean the servant is needed to "progress"

Pretty much your entire post is about how you are seeing the NEED to have a servant to CLEAR CONTENT, PROGRESS.

We get it, is a predatory system, its flawed, and your math is very much welcomed to warn others about the insane cost that would be needed in order to get a 50 fellowship servant, but in the end, you DO NOT NEED a 50 fellowship servant to clear content, is optional, like it is spending money in the game.

You miss the point it's not about clearing or progression but about getting BiS and a lot of people care to be competitive for moongourd.

Also notice how EME hasn't even bothered to have a pet sale or even bring back older pets, so the current pets must be selling like crazy yet. I threw down 10 bucks to get a different skill on my main's partner, but that's all they are getting out of me for this new partner system.

No doubt more and more in game will change to something like this. Just wait until we can surrender mounts to get a special mount with a bonus.